


Like A Hollywood Picture

by plinys



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Multi, au - Celebrity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-03 14:30:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4104319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy Carter and Howard Stark are perpetually locked into the titles of "Academy Award Nominee" but that has a chance for change when they run into a young film writer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Hollywood Picture

**Author's Note:**

  * For [storiesfortravellers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/gifts).



“Carter and Stark’s undeniable chemistry makes _The Iron Ceiling_ into what is sure to be this year’s Academy Award winner. Perhaps more interesting than their onscreen chemistry is their-“

“Please, for the love god Howard, stop reading those out loud,” Peggy says, snatching the latest gossip rag out of her _friend_ ’s hands and snapping it shut. The cover girl – the _lovely_ Dottie Underwood – smiles back at her, until Peggy shoves the magazine face down and out of the way.

Howard for his part, grins at her as though he’s in on some sort of private joke. The garnish glasses sliding down over his nose does hardly anything to hide his appearance, and honestly she’s just surprised the paparazzi has yet to find them and ruin yet another one of their lunch dates.

“Any press is good press, pal,” he says, that awful New York accent he totes about when not on set, rolls of his tongue in an almost abrasive way, “we’re going for the gold this year.”

“You say that every year.”

“This one’s different.”

*

He’s wrong, predictably, but she does her best not to rub it in his face.

“Thompson’s an ass,” she says, not that it makes any difference.

Howard just grins at her from behind his glass of champagne, before saying, “next year,” like it’s a goddamned promise.

She wants to tell him that maybe it’s time to give it a rest, that they’ve had a good run, but then a camera snaps in their direction, and Howard’s arm winds instinctively around her waist, tugging her closer to him.

One of the reports shouts out a question, “When are you finally going to put a ring on it Stark?”

She expects him to roll his eyes, play it off like they usually do, but he’s just the wrong side of drunk and the words that spill out are, “when we win one of these damn things.”

They make the front page of two different gossip rags the next morning, and Howard frames them in his office, like he’s done since the very first one.

*

Six years ago, fresh out of one of London’s best acting schools, she’d taken a plane to the States for an audition. Her life packed up into two suitcases and a cramped apartment she’d shared with a young waitress.

Everyone had told her not to get her hopes up, that things in Hollywood took time.

But Chester Philips, an American director keen on making war movies, took one look at her and cast her immediately. Two weeks later, her costar, a brash young New Yorker has been cast alongside her.

She’d been told to drop ten pound and curl her hair.

He’d been told to pick a more Americanlast name. 

In late December _Now Is Not The End_ hit the big screen.

By New Year’s Peggy Carter and Howard Stark were household names.

And by the end of February it was customary to see the words Academy Award Nominee written before either of their names.

In the time since there’s she’s gotten very sick of that last word, _nominee_ leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

*

The after-party is awful.

If she has to plaster on another fake smile at tell _Dottie_ congratulations one more time she was going to smash somebody’s face in, probably with that expensive vase she had seen on her way in, or a coffee pot.

“Let’s get out of here,” Howard says, his fingers curled around her waist, “I’m tried.”

“Couldn’t find any desperate girls to fuck,” she asks once they’re back inside his limo.

“Just you, Carter, always, just you.”

They fuck in a parking limo in an In-N-Out parking lot.

She tells him she hates him through clenched teeth right before she comes. He returns the sentiment with far too much enthusiasm. 

They’ve gotten too complacent for this.

*

“I’ll take a double with animal style fries,” because screw her diet, she was going to have to spend another years as a nominee she might as well splurge a bit, “and Howard?”

“Hamburger, grilled onions and extra spread, with large chocolate smoothie.”

“You’re disgusting,” she tells him, before producing a credit card from her bra and shoving it in the direction of the cashier.

“I try,” he replies, pressing a kiss into her cheek. His breath still smells like cheap liquor, and she wrinkles her nose.

“Hey aren’t you that-“

“Movie star,” Peggy finishes for him, giving the cashier a friendly well practiced grin, “the one and only.”

“Did you win?”

“Do you think we’d be here if we won,” Howard answers for her, just a bit too sharply, tugging the receipt out of the cashier’s hands. He’s always been more visibly bitter than her.

 It’s Peggy’s job to plaster on the fake smile and apologize to the slightly harried employee. While Howard only saves his smiles for her people he intends to have between his sheets later.

She’s in the middle of filling up her soda, when a small voice from the booth in the corner speaks up, “are you two really movie stars?”

And that’s the moment when everything changes.

Her eyes appraisingly sweet over the questioning figure, while Howard responds, “What’s it to you, kid?”

*

Steve Rogers, indie screenwriter fresh out of NYU, has wide eyes and a notebook full of ideas. He’s maybe one-twenty wet, in clothing that all seems too big for him, picking at a carton of fries as though he could make them last.

Peggy plans to eat him alive.

Judging by the way Howard’s sprawled over the other side of the booth, arms relaxed over the back of the seat toying with the shoulder of Steve’s sweater, he’s thinking the same thing.

“So you want to write movies,” Peggy asks, eyeing the notebook that’s sitting on the table.

“Write, direct, produce,” he drawls out, “I want to do the whole thing ma’am, but sure writing’s a start.”

“You send in any scripts yet,” Howard asks, his eyes meeting hers across the table, before winking.

“I tried, but they were saying that I needed an agent and-“

“Why don’t you let us have a look? We’re in need of a new project.”

*

He’s not just an adorable twink, though that does help.

Howard puts him up in _their_ mansion. Theirs because Howard’s the type of nouveau riche celebrity to buy every place that pops up on the market, and after the third time he tried to give her house keys as a birthday gift she threw caution to the wind and moved in with them.

It helped with the creative process; that was the excuse they gave to anybody who asked.

The paparazzi, of course, insisted that living together was clearly a sign that they were in a relationship.

They weren’t, just sometimes they slept together to blow off steam. And even when they did it was never really satisfying. They needed a third to get the motion going right.

Currently that third was sitting on Howard’s kitchen counter, in a loose tank top that showed of his collarbones, the cap of a pen wedged between his teeth.

She wants to kiss those lips, but they’re not ready for that, not just yet. So instead she makes herself a cup of tea and asks, “how’s much longer till it’s ready?”

“Another week, if that’s alright?”

*

True to his word, a week later, they were eating lunch in a café she and Howard spent far too much time at, while Steve laid his script out before them.

“For future reference, I don’t eat cheese,” Howard explains, pulling the slice of swiss off his sandwich before pushing it over towards her.

She easily takes the place from them, offering the explanation that Howard had failed to add, “it’s not kosher.”

“You’re eating a ham sandwich,” Steve points out, “isn’t that-“

“Break some rules, keep the others,” he replies, before taking a bite of his very much non-kosher sandwich, “now show us what you got?”

*

“Morning, Miss Carter, how are you-“

She doesn’t let him finish that sentence, kissing those pink bitten lips without a second thought. He stills against her for the briefest of seconds, before pushing back into the kiss greedily, low desperate noises escaping his throat.

“What do you have here,” Howard’s droll voice cuts the kiss off, and she pulls back from Steve reluctantly to shoot him an annoyed look.

He’s trying to act serious, but the look doesn’t work. She can see the corner of his lips twitch, and the fingers holding his coffee mug in place, drum against the side of the cup.

Steve, who doesn’t know Howard’s tells, falls for it.

“I’m sorry, we weren’t – this isn’t what it looks like?”

“That’s disappointing, pal.”

The confused expression that settles on Steve’s face is almost adorable, “wait, what? I thought, you’re not mad, shouldn’t you be made I was just kissing your girl.”

“I’m not his girl,” she says, slightly offended, curling her fingers tightly around Steve’s wrist.

 “You’re not?”

“Not if she can help it,” Howard answers for her, “though we do like to share pretty young things, if you’re interested.”

And that’s the thing, he says it, with just a hint of question.

If Steve said no now Peggy would back off, they’d go back to the perfectly pleasant friendly relationship that had been going on before, nothing more. Because they had policy, and that policy meant sharing, but it also meant not letting somebody unwilling get tangled up in their mess.

No matter how much she wanted them there.

“You mean, I could have both of you?”

“Preferable at the same time, but we don’t want to overwhelm you.”

“Speak for yourself, pal.”

*

The movie is, of course, a roaring success, partially because they’re starring it and everything they do is flawless, but also because Steve really does have a way with writing.

“You’re going to be famous one day,” Peggy promises him, as she adjusts his bow tie in the mirror. He’s done it crooked again, that or somebody messed it up. Though judging by the way his hair looks a bit messier than before, and his cheeks are just a touch more pink than usual, she supposes Howard is to blame for the bow tie’s rumpled shape.

“I’m not doing it for the fame,” he says, the words _I’m doing it for you_ carries silently across the empty space between them.

Their relationship while perfect in private, three bodies moving towards each other, pushing and pulling in perfect rhythm, it’s when they’re out in public that it all seems off.

Howard has another headline cut out and pressed away, in which all the latest gossip rags had speculated that she was stepping out on him. They’d all had a good laugh about it for a while, even going so far as to joking about telling their public the truth.

They didn’t of course.

Instead Peggy and Howard stand together like the oldest of friends, the dearest of couplies, while one of her hands reaches back instinctively to curl around Steve’s wrist.

“I wish I could sit with you,” Steve confesses, “but I’ll be back with the other writers, like they had me at the Globes?”

“And you’ll win again, same as before,” she promises, wishing she had a happier answer to give him.

Their saved from the rest of that conversation but the rumpled appearance of her costar, for it seems her imaginings were correct.

“If you both look thoroughly debauched people will assume things,” she tuts.

“Let them.”

*

“Oh wow, uh, I didn’t really expect to win this,” he says turning the award over in his hands, “I mean, I really didn’t – I’ve got nothing prepared, but I supposed I should start with thanking people so, Peggy and Howard, this one’s for you two. Maybe one day you’ll win one of your own?”

Beside her Howard makes an lets out an annoyed sigh, his voice dropping low so that only she can hear, “I’m going to fuck that smirk off his face when we get home.”

“Oh, I was planning on doing it in the limo.”

 


End file.
